You do not know who I am— until you see the face under the words.

Self Therapy

Years ago,my mother forced me into therapy. My best friend had just moved away. She and my father were divorcing. I was quiet. I was having severe stomach pain, which according to the doctor just had to be stomach ulcers caused by depression— it wasn’t stomach ulcers. I walked into the room— very unwillingly— and didn’t say a word. The entire hour I was there I sat there in silence, crying. I continued to cry after we left and I couldn’t stop. I felt so pathetic, so absolutely pathetic. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t think, I could only cry, and that’s all I did. For a week I lay in bed and cried. I didn’t eat much. I lost a bunch of weight and for the first time, I felt depressed. I don’t know why therapy made me feel so dead inside, so broken. It only worsened when they made me go back. It was a different therapist, some highly esteemed professional with beady eyes and certificates hanging on the wall. I hated it. I hated being watched. Crying is something I just don’t do and now I was and he was watching. I wanted to scream. I couldn’t talk to these people. These people who would smile and act like they understood me, like they didn’t think I was broken. I hated them for it. Just waiting to tell me what was wrong with me. That’s precisely what they did. As I sat there crying, in order to provoke my speech, they would tell me about all the ways my life was screwed up and ask me about it as if talking about it and really noticing it would make me feel better? I wasn’t troubled before therapy. I was happy, genuinely happy. Since then, the empty, misunderstood feeling won’t go away. I cry at night, and I don’t know why. I wake up terrified, huddled in a corner remembering only petrifying fear. I feel defensive. I feel so alone, so afraid to let anyone in, let anyone know. Honestly, the only reason i would ever submit to myself to therapy is if I were suicidal, but then therapy would do no good. The whole “confidential” rule doesn’t apply in that case, and I can take myself to my own “suicide prevention” professional. I hope that never happens. I’d hate to ruin their track record; I’m too stubborn to have my mind changed or be told how to live my life. Writing helps though. I don’t feel like me when I write. I’m someone else. I know no bounds. I know no enemy. I know no friend. I know my pen, I know my keyboard, I know my paper, I know my story. I become someone I don’t know. A different state of mind. If I ever look back and read my writing, I’m shocked. It isn’t me. It’s someone inside me. Maybe that’s why I feel empty. Unless I’m writing, the being holding the pen isn’t there. Maybe she wanders off to a fiction land, maybe the therapists scared her too. Maybe she’s that imaginary friend I never quite met. Maybe she’s with my hands now, typing this. Maybe this is her through my perspective. There is a lot of maybe’s, but maybe this, writing through her, maybe this is my self therapy, Maybe.